Yeomanry's anniversary too

  

By coincidence, 2025 is a significant year not just for the loggerheads but for the Shropshire Yeomanry regiment. It is the 150th anniversary year of the North and South Shropshire Yeomanry. 
The anniversary is being celebrated with a small exhibition at St Mary’s, Shrewsbury town’s central church.

The Yeomanry badge has always carried loggerheads (as you’d expect), though the design can vary quite a bit. In the photo above, there are three versions of Yeomanry loggerheads!
(For other variants used by the Yeomanry, see Sharp Militaria and Helmeted Loggerheads).

The Shropshire Yeomanry were transmuted into the 75th and 76th (SY) Regiments Royal Artillery during WW2.

 A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Loggerheads go into battle

The ‘Shrewsbury Levy’ medieval enactment group (which used to be known as Les Miles de Marches) sport loggerheads badges on their costumes. It’s great to see them in action, especially when re-creating the 1403 Battle of Shrewsbury.

In fact, there is no proof that the Levy (a kind of town militia) wore the loggerheads badges  back in 1403 - but then, there is no proof they didn’t, either…

Thanks for the photo to Lin Keska.

 

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Bollard makeover

 

Now and again, the keen loggerheads spotter will find quite rare ones.  This is a case in point.

Although there are dozens of bollards in Shrewsbury town, very few have the loggerheads arms of the town council marked on them.  This one, which dates back to the time of the Shrewsbury & Atcham combined council, does; it is in St Mary's Court. 

However, this bollard has recently been given a makeover, and now looks quite different.  
The town tourism body, BID, has been going slightly mad painting all bollards in sight - and this one has not escaped. 
Sadly, a blotch of white on one of the loggerheads makes it slightly harder to distinguish . 

 

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Pin up

The response to the 600th anniversary of the loggerheads has been heartening.  There are lots of things going on! (See Loggerheads 2025).

Now a history-loving local entrepreneur has designed some pins to mark the occasion!  
The pins are on sale at Shrewsbury Museum shop for a very reasonable £2 apiece. 

 

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Salop? Shrops?

 

One of the confusing matters for 'outsiders' is deciding what name to apply to the county - 'Salop' or 'Shropshire'.  The names can be used interchangeably, but such loose usage can also lead to rows among purists. 

The county council was formed in 1889 and switched often between the two monikers until a ruling in 1933 confirmed the name as Salop.  But even then, it was felt to be too old-fashioned; and more rows saw the legal name changed to Shropshire later.

One of the rows was around the the new council’s arms, which you can see in the council's official handbook of 1890 (in the photo above).  The arms - as you can see - were basically no different to the arms of Shrewsbury, with the loggerheads front and centre.  Cue...: objections from the rest of Shropshire!  A new design for the county council's arms was quickly drawn up and introduced.
Even so, rows still go on today about the place of the traditional loggerheads design in the arms.

The various kerfuffles are outlined in a new book about the loggerheads. 

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Modern art takes on the loggerheads

To celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads, the Shrewsbury Tourism Business group, BID, commissioned a few artists to paint a couple of broadband-cabinets and bollards, as part of the overall decoration of the town.

Their mission?  To interpret the loggerheads for 2025.

 The artist Snids took a bollard in the town's Fish Street.  She’s got the colours right – gold & blue – and. though she has not represented the leopard-heads in the traditional trinities, she has painted exactly six separate leopard-heads, which… is (sorta) a double-set of loggerheads! 

 

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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A wax impression

 

Talking of the 1425 Great Seal of Shrewsbury, as we were in the last post, here’s another reference.  The red piece in the bottom row of the photo above is a wax copy of the seal.

Impressions of the seal would have been created by pushing the metal seal into some melting wax on a formal document - to signify the approval of the Shrewsbury town corporation.  (The loggerheads connection to the seal is that the loggerheads were part of its design).

You can find the glass-cabinet in the photo, with all its various seals, very simply: it’s installed in Shrewsbury Abbey, which is open to the public almost every day. 
No one knows how old this wax copy is, though.

 

 A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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